Poyer

We previously wrote about the near-scuffles at the February 23rd Round Table. There’s a discussion of these shouting matches on Bill Master’s website, The Summit Advisor. One of the multiple posters in that thread uses the anonymous ID Guest47.

Guest47’s posts aren’t accurate on the basic facts of what took place at the Round Table. Fraser was not “countering Master’s allegation that the board and committees engage in secret meetings” on the clip, as the poster contended. Fraser’s first outburst occurred after Steve Locke attempted to ask audience-member Masters a few questions in what looked like a scripted event. Fraser’s second outburst occurred after the meeting had concluded. Both of these facts are clear on the video. At one point, Masters did ask a question – not make an allegation – about his concerns that the board was having private discussions, but this question and the response concluded without incident – almost 1 hour after Fraser’s first outburst. Since Guest47 can’t even get basic facts straight, we’re not going to devote a lot of energy to unscrambling his post.

Bill Adams confessed to us that he regularly posted on Master’s website under this exact same anonymous ID, Guest47. The combination of these posts and Adams’ position in the community (he’s Chair of the Buildings and Grounds Committee and serves on the Activities Committee) prompted us to reflect on Adams’ conduct and prior writings.

There is a larger point in scrutinizing the opinions of these individuals, and it’s a point with which the Lake Holiday community desperately needs to come to grips. Lake Holiday has a widespread problem, and it is so damaging the community that if it’s not fixed, it will destroy it. What is it? A lot of people are playing a game of denial.

In his posts, Guest47 complained that Masters is a “constant nuisance” and has a website that serves “the lowest level of intellect whose purpose is to provoke others….” – and then he proceeded to praise Fraser’s conduct. Every reasonable person who watches the Keep It Over Here Punk video (also on our Videos page) will say that the behavior of Locke and Fraser was designed to provoke. But Guest47 denies this reality.

For a period of time Bill Masters allowed Bill Adams to serve as the editor of The Summit Advisor, and as Adams himself stated in October 2005, he wrote “most of the Advisors’ articles.” In that capacity Bill Adams often was highly critical of the conduct of LHCC’s board. Here are a few highlights.

He went on to list a dozen bad decisions to support his point “in hopes of awaking some determination for improvement.” We calculate that the cost of these bad decisions exceeds millions of dollars.

Just a short time later, we distributed a petition for a special meeting to remove the majority of LHCC’s board, and Bill Adams signed this petition calling for the removal of then President Chris Allison. He added the notation on our form: “Regretably [sic], this action is necessary.” Regarding our petition Bill Adams wrote:

The petition itself does not seek to grant water & sewer expansion to Oqunquit lots at community expense as has been suggested. … The sentiment of the Board and its defendants is that the Ogunquit proposed replacements are pro-expansion and willing to commit community funds ($M’s) to that cause. We do not believe that to be an accurate assessment. While we cannot speak for the individuals (nor should the board) we believe their interest is more toward fixing some inherent problems with the board itself.

In any new development the Developer would incur the total costs of such amenities (along with roads and infrastructure) and would recover the expense via the sale of lots. Amenities are normally employed to attract buyers to the development. Instead, we the residents are contributing a disproportionate share to these capital improvements such as the clubhouse, gatehouse and bus stop. Ever get the feeling that…(never mind).

The unfinished thought from a person who otherwise has no problem expressing himself is denial taking over. Adams also took up the issue of the Utility sale. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of LHEUC’s assets was in the form of a contingent note stretching out 15 years. Of this contingent stream of payments from Aqua Virginia, Adams wrote:

…the 15 yearly payments of $78k are contingent on an aggressive new connection quota! In a declining housing market, we can probably kiss that $1.17M goodbye. We understand that interim hookup fees are also deducted from the $800k. At $8686* each, if 92 lots are connected, the utility company is a give-away. Free! Some deal!

Both we and Bill Masters have been critical of the collectibility of the contingent payment stream from Aqua and that LHEUC was sold too cheaply. As far back as August 2006, Adams expressed the same criticism – describing it sarcastically as “some deal!” Adams largely stopped his public efforts to foster change; we and Masters have not stopped such efforts because the governance problems that underlie these events remain unfixed. The fix for those unable to face reality: deny the validity of Masters’ points and label him a “constant nuisance.”

In October 2005, after the Court granted our petition to block LHCC from voting its own lots in elections, Adams wrote:

As hopes of passing the documents erodes, the board may be scrambling for ways to keep it alive. One hope may have been the 223 lot votes denied by the court. Was the board intending to use them to pass the documents? We may never know. Another hope might have been that a fair portion of the population would vote for the new documents. Receipt of mail-in votes may have dashed that hope as well. Nobody who I talked to is supporting the documents. With imminent failure at hand, the cancellation of the vote may have been to [sic] only alternative to a major embarrassment.

Adams’ statement that “we may never know” if the Board was intending to vote LHCC-owned lots is more of the denial game. LHCC’s board passed Resolution 2004-8 expressing its intentions in writing. We were not in Court on this issue based on speculation but rather on published statements. Hiding behind vague and inaccurate words is denial. Facing “imminent failure” LHCC canceled the September 2005 vote on new governing documents. Adams continued his criticism of these proposed documents, which he felt were:

…verbose and convoluted rules intended to keep lawyers employed. We could actually go out and enjoy the lake and amenities without worry that we would lose our rights. God forbid we ever need legal interpretation of existing rules like “no clotheslines”. Instead the misery lives on – Postponed until another angle can be contrived.

By May 2006 when substantially the same governing documents re-surfaced for a vote that June, Adams forgot about the “misery” and gave the documents back-handed praise, claiming they were:

more readable than earlier versions, with a nice cover page, uniform margins and paragraph numbering. … Many comparative reviews are possible, e.g.; with the existing documents, with the 40 “Recommended Changes”, and between versions on the revised documents. The feasibility and value of such comparisons is questionable, given the complexity and time frames.

Translation of Adams’ gibberish: The documents look pretty, they’re hard to understand, time is short, but I just can’t bring myself to tell you to approve them. When you have to resort to praising the deed to your property – perhaps your most valuable investment – because it has a nice cover page and uniform margins, you are in denial. Fortunately, thanks in large part to Bill Masters’ efforts to inform the community, approval of these new governing documents failed by a wide margin. To those denial gamers who claim that we are an unpopular lone wolf, pause and reflect: nearly 2 out of every 3 voters who voted against these documents joined with us and voted “No” by our proxy.

At the same time in a post entitled A Development Diary, Adams offered sharp criticism for recent board actions:

Adopting Goldberg’s rules, any unchallenged presidential motion automatically becomes a unanimous board resolution. Totalitarian Democracy is invented. Fearing litigation, the Board refunds all builder conformance fines imposed by the Architectural Committee. A revised Enforcement Guideline is created detailing every conceivable construction infraction and remedy. An ex-board president (who signed the Development Agreement) and a favored Builder are installed by the Board on the Architectural Committee without customary apprenticeship. The third Construction Supervisor and ArchComm liaison in a year quits along with a long standing ArchComm member.

”Totalitarian Democracy.” Those are very strong words to describe a community association. Despite those strong feelings, Adams could not muster the courage to explain that he was the “long standing ArchComm member” who quit over the problems he described. When you distance yourself from your own first-hand experiences, you are in denial.

Like Adams, we’ve been critical of the adoption of Goldberg’s Rules of order. But our website is labeled a “hate site.” People that play the denial game often lash out at those who challenge them to face reality.

Unfortunately, these examples of denial are not limited to Adams. In August 2006 Miller & Smith sent a letter to all property owners, stating in part, “Yes, we have special privileges….” (Our own reply has been posted here for everyone to see since that same time. For another twist on the denial game, review our comments on free water & sewer. As recently as the Saturday 2/23 Round Table, Wayne Poyer was still repeating the free water & sewer lie.) At around the same time former LHCC President Lou Einstman was allowed to post his own answer to Miller & Smith on the front page of The Summit Advisor:

When I left the Board in 2004, there was almost two million dollars in the bank. Today, the treasurer is predicting that we will be broke by September if we can’t get a loan or a line of credit. Where did all that money go? Maybe the changes that Heisey and Allison made in the way business is conducted weren’t so good for the community after all.

Einstman regularly attends board meetings, so he’s in a position to observe board conduct first-hand. On the responsibility of being a board member, Einstman wrote:

This isn’t a social position! Some of the present Board members seem to think that all they have to do is show up for the meetings. They don’t do their homework. They don’t understand the issues nor do they know how they want to vote on them. This irresponsible attitude is very discouraging.

Others have been similarly critical of board conduct. Former LHCC employee LeeAnn Stevens revealed that board members came to her asking for explanations of what went on in the boardroom or complaining that actions were taken without discussion. Both Einstman’s and Stevens’ sharp words parallel the criticism that both we and Masters have leveled at the board.

Our Silent Sitter award is certainly more colorful, but it is a legitimate attempt to draw attention to the very same problem that caught Einstman’s attention over 1 year earlier – but remains unaddressed. To those put off by our Silent Sitter award, take note: Einstman’s modest caution failed to correct the problem. In the spring of 2007, months before introducing the Silent Sitter award, we called Lou Einstman and asked to meet to discuss solutions to these and other problems. He declined our request. Instead of acknowledging our shared observation, Einstman’s response is to tell the critics to stop complaining and “get out.”

We’ve documented that Einstman supported the election of Rick Bleck, who did not meet the 1 year ownership requirement for nomination set forth in LHCC’s bylaws and was invisible on the campaign trail but was elected anyway. Bleck said very little while he was on the board, and what little he did say qualifies as T-shirt quote material. Promoting the election of people who “don’t understand the issues” when you’ve criticized that behavior as “irresponsible” is just part of the effort to conceal and deny legitimate problems.

Einstman was critical of the Heisey and Allison years but has supported Wayne Poyer’s leadership. Is it because Einstman was on the outside looking in during Allison’s tenure, and Poyer gives him special treatment? Watch the video below of audience member Einstman walking up to board member Robin Pedlar and carrying on a conversation while the board is conducting business. Watch the heads of most board members turn down to ignore Einstman’s inappropriate behavior, and Martel completely disregard what is taking place right next to him. Ask yourself if Wayne Poyer would have been that slow to react if Bill Masters had engaged in that conduct, or if Poyer would have responded in such a polite and restrained manner. Einstman plays the denial game for a simple reason: he’s now getting the insider perk of favorable treatment not afforded others.

Over and over again, it’s the same thing. At the January 26th board meeting, Treasurer John Martel was skeptical of spending $4650 for an automated device to measure the level of the lake. Our video Lake Level Pt 1 (also on our Videos page) makes this clear. At the February 23rd Round Table, a question from Bill Masters which expressed similar skepticism and proposed an alternative solution, was met with mocking giggles incited by Wayne Poyer and a sarcastic comment from Martel. We’re not aware of any proof to support Wayne Poyer’s claim that an automatic lake level monitoring system is required by the state for dam certification, and we doubt any board member had such proof before voting to approve this expenditure. We challenge them to produce such proof. Mocking Masters and others is the denial gamers trying to turn the tables on critics so they can continue playing their game.

In August 2006, “guest #47” offered these comments on The Summit Advisor:

In defense of Bill Masters; Bill is a persistent advocate of frugal spending and accountability. As many know, he is not afraid to publicly challenge those in authority if they are not perceived to be acting in the community interest. Admittedly, Bill can become cantankerous when his questions and comments are evaded or dismissed. What he lacks in tact he makes up for with determination. To directors and proselyte with provincial follow-the-leader mentality he is a nuisance to be discredited and avoided. For those unaware, the brief utility board tenure involved his criticism of the unnecessary and expensive planned replacement of manholes, and the awarding of contracts to a friend of the utility board president’s without a bidding process. He was disparaged and removed from the utility board. After he left, many of his alternative ideas were adopted with no credit given.

Note the use of the word “nuisance.” Masters is a good kind of nuisance in August 2006, but in February 2008 he’s the bad variety. In the October 2006 election, Masters sought a board seat, seeking to try to remedy the same problems the he and Adams had been describing for years. He lost the election, not because of a failure to capture votes from residents, but because Miller & Smith was allowed to vote about 100 lots in Section 10 that residents had been told could not be voted. In fact, Adams himself wrote about the deed changes Miller & Smith made in July 2006, at about the very same time they were made. Presumably, he knew about the Miller & Smith ballot box deluge that would catch the community by such surprise about 3 months later. Instead of flashing warning signs, he discussed the deed changes in relatively unremarkable terms.

By November 2006, Masters had had enough of Bill Adams’ playing the denial game. Despite being allowed to edit the front page of Masters’ popular website, Adams turned on his neighbor by posting that the 2006 election outcome (which included Masters’ loss) was a vote for the “continued positive agenda” and that following the Annual Meeting, “everyone left happy.” He called the outcome “truly resident driven.” Shortly thereafter, recognizing his role was about to be eliminated, Adams resigned, perhaps hiding out as Guest47 ever since.

The clubhouse renovation was underway by the spring of 2007, and Adams played an important role in reviewing the security system for that project. To his neighbor Masters, Adams privately criticized the handling of the clubhouse security contract but confided that he was unwilling to publicly address his complaints because he did not want to jeopardize his insider involvement. Putting the past behind him and praising Adams’ contributions, Masters tried to coax a public discussion of these issues on The Summit Advisor, but Adams in a rare post under his own name responded that the topic was “not open to public debate.”

Adams, like Einstman and others, could not be weaned from the insider perks, so the denial game continues. The biggest insider perk: playing a role in spending over $2 million of your neighbor’s money every year. Plain and simple, it’s a power trip. It’s empowering to have the power to make expenditures and meet with professionals (e. g., high-priced lawyers and accountants) one otherwise would not be able to make or meet on one’s own, and especially so for those without the every-day responsibility of a job (Adams, for example, is a retiree). Loss of involvement is one price to pay for speaking up, and that’s a big force driving the denial game. In our Maint Bldg Pt 1-3 videos (you guessed it, they’re also on our Videos page), director Pat Shields said he would consult with Adams and Bob Fraser, one of the stars of Keep It Over Here Punk video, on this project. He didn’t say a word about consulting with Bill Masters.

Dr. Sanity, an MD and popular blogger who applies psychiatry to broader social observations, has written about people that are in denial:

When confronted, they become angry and usually contend that it is their confronter who has the REAL problem, not them.

Attacking us and Masters for making the exact same criticism that they have made is just the denial gamers attacking their confronter. We’ll anticipate one criticism to this post from the denial gamers, that it’s a personal attack. It’s not. All of our comments are focused on the political opinions and conduct of people engaged in governing their community or who are openly discussing their community’s governance. That makes their conduct and their opinions legitimate topics for public discussion and debate.

Guest47 criticized those who “anonymously attack and vilify people such as Poyer, Allison and Fraser.” Yet Guest47 hides behind an anonymous ID and attacks us and Masters. We make every post here, and make no secret of who we are and that the opinions expressed in these posts are ours. The absurdity of Guest47 criticizing anonymous attacks while he launches his own is self-evident. Guest47’s hypocrisy takes on a pathetic quality.

Dr. Sanity has also discussed denial as a “defense mechanism” that is “almost always pathological….” and set forth the factors that define a pathological defense:

the defense is used in a rigid, inflexible, and exclusive manner

the motivation for using the defense comes more from past needs than present or future reality

the defense severely distorts the present situation

use of the defense leads to significant problems in relationships, functioning, and enjoyment of life

use of the defense impedes or distorts emotions and feelings, instead of rechanneling them effectively

Judge for yourself how accurately the attack-the-confronter response and the characteristics of a pathological defense apply to Lake Holiday politics.

The denial game costs the Lake Holiday community dearly. Thousands of lives have been affected. Tens of millions of dollars of Membership Lot property values have been destroyed. People have been obstructed from enjoying their property for over 30 years. The obstruction has lasted so long that victims have died without ever getting a remedy. That these serious problems have been unaddressed for so long is a mark of shame for Frederick County and the state of Virginia. The governance problems that Adams and Einstman complained about are still unresolved. They’re the exact same problems that Masters has complained about and the exact same problems that we’ve complained about.

Instead of fixing these problems, the denial gamers say our blog is a “hate site” and Masters “cannot accept any ideas which are not his own.” The denial game continues, the problems thrive. As do the websites that seek to address the problems that have plagued Lake Holiday for decades.

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Lake Holiday’s board held a Round Table on Saturday, February 23rd to give property owners a chance to ask questions and receive answers from board members and the GM. All but two board members (Jo-anne Barnard and Suzy Marcus) attended, along with GM Ray Sohl. Wayne Poyer answered most questions, including those questions posed to other directors. Steve Locke, Noel O’Brien, and Robin Pedlar didn’t answer a single question. One wonders why Wayne Poyer didn’t let these directors contribute at all during more than a 2 hour informal question-and-answer session. After all, every board member was asked to attend, and the purpose was to give owners the opportunity to ask questions of the entire board, not Wayne Poyer exclusively.

As he promised on his website, Bill Masters attended the meeting and waited his turn to ask questions of the board. On a number of occasions, Round Table audience members attempted to upend the purpose of the meeting and direct questions to Masters. At one point even board member Steve Locke engaged in this. The result: several fights nearly broke out.

Three of these near-fights are combined on the above clip. The first involved resident Bob Fraser yelling at an innocent and uninvolved camera operator to “keep it over here punk” to capture his rant. This was provoked by Locke’s turning the purpose of the meeting on its head and directing questions to Masters, who was the only audience member that either the board or other attendees wanted to question. Masters was singled out.

A short time later, the question-answer format got back on track. Masters directed a question to Treasurer John Martel, but, instead of getting an answer from Martel, Poyer decided to answer the question for him. Masters complained. Evidently, director Steve Locke was still fuming from his perception that Masters didn’t answer his questions. Locke moved so aggressively toward Masters that he had to be restrained by his wife and ordered by Wayne Poyer to return to his seat.

The third incident came as the meeting was breaking up. Fraser, apparently not content with one YouTube moment, wanted a little more camera time. After getting up and walking toward the exit, he reversed direction, moving aggressively toward the camera operator he previously called a “punk.” That forced Masters to put himself between an obviously irate Fraser and his target, if only to delay Fraser to give him a chance to cool down.

Fortunately, these almost-altercations remained just that, and no real fights broke out. We’ll state the obvious: violence and suggestions of violence, including the intimidation shown on the video, have no proper place, and certainly not at a Saturday morning community meeting over coffee and donuts. Steve Locke and Bob Fraser owe Masters, all attendees, and every owner an apology for their behavior. If you can’t behave in public, stay home.

Bob Fraser and threatening language have crossed paths before. In June of 2006, a homeowner circulated an email with information about a recent post on this website. Bob Fraser’s reply? He started with profanity and ended with “I’ll get even.” (Click on the image to read his exact words, which contains the profanity unedited.) Former LHCC President and current Architectural Committee Chair Lou Einstman, one of the email recipients, didn’t like Fraser’s tirade, and he told him just that.

Fraser wasn’t impressed by Einstman’s principled stand. Fraser’s response to Einstman: “You are a sanctimonious jerk.” At least he replaced the four letter words with longer ones that can be quoted here.

Is it believable that these former adversaries settled their differences and were working together on the oft-cited positive agenda of the board? In October 2007, both Einstman and Fraser put their names on the same Lake Holiday Owners Group postcard (which also bore Fraser’s return address), urging their neighbors to elect the same candidates. The postcard omits all mention of weak minds and sanctimonious jerks.

Was this mailing just an outsider’s attempt to try to create the illusion of political unity at Lake Holiday? Is it credible that Einstman and Fraser got together and chipped in their proportionate cost of this mailing, given the history we’ve reported? Or are people that label others as having weak minds and being sanctimonious jerks united in at least 1 thing – keeping control to themselves?

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At the January 26th board meeting, homeowners Terry & LeeAnn Stevens questioned whether board members actually receive communications from property owners. Based on their sharp words for the board and GM Ray Sohl, our use of the word “question” is a dramatic understatement. Judge for yourself in the following video, in which LeeAnn criticized Ray Sohl’s “half-assed responses:”

With the issue of communications to directors fresh in our minds, we decided to take a look back and thumb through a former director’s original board book. It was chock full of numerous goodies, the kind of things that some directors seem to want to hide from members. One document was a prophetic 2001 email from homeowner Bob Pumphrey to then LHCC President Frank Heisey. Pumphrey asked Heisey to “change the management” and stop condoning “violations of state and county laws….” He offered this cautionary warning:

…if these conditions continue, we will have another Summit war in less than five years. This one will be worse than the last as it will be neighbor against neighbor.

Reading Pumphrey’s email triggered another memory: a Frank Heisey soliloquy to the board in which he was critical of a handful of “uncivil property owners.” He claimed to have addressed those he criticized “personally.” We’ve never received any personal communication from Heisey. We checked with Bill Masters, someone we suspect Heisey might label “uncivil.” Nope, Heisey never personally addressed these issues with him either.

Maybe Heisey finally got back to Bob Pumphrey? It’s only been over 6 years.

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63 days. That’s how long it took for LHCC’s board to flip flop on the utility problem at Lake Holiday, especially when board members started having problems of their own.

As we discussed in our post It’s Not Our Problem Anymore, on 11/26/07 Wayne Poyer said just that: problems with utility service weren’t the board’s problem anymore. He ignored the fact that his predecessor Chris Allison promised members that the LHCC GM would play a central role in resolving utility problems after the sale to Aqua Virginia. Poyer distanced himself from utility issues when addressing problems raised by ordinary homeowners. But at the January 28th board meeting, the story changed when board members started reporting their own utility problems.

John Martel complained that:

Aqua’s customer service has been and continues to be both inadequate and ineffective.

In his view Aqua Virginia engaged in “questionable billing practices.” Martel described his own problems with Aqua Virginia and what a company customer rep told him about it. According to him, she said:

I will send that problem to the billing department but I don’t think they’ll do anything about it.

Do we know are there any people here at Lake Holiday that are happy with the service? … I don’t know anybody.

Several directors planned to meet with representatives from Aqua Virginia on Thursday January 31st. According to Martel, Aqua Virginia “finally, finally agreed to a face-to-face meeting.” If that meeting didn’t produce satisfactory commitments from Aqua Virginia, the board planned to complain to the SCC.

We first reported about this situation many months ago. The very same topic is covered in our video clip Crazy Aqua VA Bills (also on our Videos page) from the March 2007 board meeting, now 11 months old. Poyer and the rest of the board didn’t want to get involved at that time. In response to an open forum question from a homeowner with a utility problem, Pat Shields suggested that the homeowner had a water leak between the meter and his house, despite the homeowner’s efforts to establish he had no leak. To diagnose his inaccurate water bills, the homeowner reached a drastic conclusion: “Just don’t flush.” Now, in January 2008, Poyer told fellow board members very matter-of-factly that Aqua Virginia’s meters just don’t work, suggesting he’s known about this problem for some time.

When ordinary homeowners write to the board about their utility problems, Wayne Poyer says “It’s not our problem anymore.” When John Martel has a utility problem, it’s time to “get tough” with Aqua Virginia and start down the path to filing a complaint with the SCC.

We’ve seen no public acknowledgement from the board about utility problems homeowners have been experiencing in Lake Holiday’s newsletter or website. To claim to be a utopia, one must sweep a lot under the rug.

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LHCC’s proxy policy was one of the most important topics discussed at the December 27th meeting. The board uses the proxy policy to unfairly restrict the opportunities that LHCC members have to express their opinions in elections. This policy is one of the board’s principal weapons to attack what it calls “the dissidents.” Using characteristic put-downs, the board describes those who vote by proxy as “less sophisticated.”

The most visible sign of LHCC’s efforts to block the use of proxies is right on the ballot envelope itself. In 2005 the ballot envelope didn’t contain any mention of proxies. In 2007, “proxy revocation” is front and center. Compare the 2005 ballot envelope to the 2007 version:

As used by LHCC, the proxy policy is nothing more than an election manipulation tool. Let’s review the 3 most recent LHCC board elections to understand what has changed and why. In each of these elections, the final outcome of who sits on the board would change based on the resolution of these challenges.

In the October 2005 election we solicited proxies almost exclusively from Membership Lot owners. Our success in capturing votes surprised LHCC’s leaders. Several facts from the 2005 election stand out:

LHCC counted more in person ballots than there were eligible voters who attended the meeting

#3

LHCC refused to count a proxy, claiming the owner voted in person – despite the person swearing under oath that she did not attend the meeting

The election results were very close, too close from the perspective of LHCC’s entrenched board. Our votes were almost all in the form of proxies. So LHCC apparently concluded it was time to develop a way to disqualify proxies before the next election. If LHCC’s directors could disqualify proxies, they could reduce our votes.

Before the October 2006 election ever took place, LHCC knew we would show up with over 400 proxies. We presented these proxies in the governing documents vote in June of 2006, so LHCC knew exactly what to expect that October. LHCC’s directors had to act, or they might have been voted out of office. Before the October 2006 election, LHCC adopted the policy that submitting any absentee ballot revoked a proxy, even if the proxy were executed after the absentee ballot was presented. This was the beginning of the proxy policy as a political tool.

The 2007 election attracted few candidates. There were 7 announced candidates running for 6 seats. One of the announced candidates was Rick Bleck, who did not meet the 1 year ownership requirement for nomination set forth in LHCC’s Bylaws and was invisible on the campaign trail but was elected anyway. Before the election took place, candidate Bill Masters challenged Bleck’s nomination, based on this simple statement in LHCC’s Bylaws:

All nominees must have been Members of the Association for at least one (1) year.

Bleck closed on his Lake Holiday home on October 12, 2006. The cutoff for nominations was September 5, 2007. Bleck obviously didn’t meet the 1 year requirement spelled out in the Bylaws. This presented a serious problem to LHCC’s entrenched board because it will go to just about any length to block Masters from winning a board seat. If Bleck’s nomination were found to be improper and therefore withdrawn, that would leave only 6 candidates – one of which would be Masters – running for 6 seats, virtually guaranteeing Masters a board seat.

The solution to this problem: pay LHCC counsel Rees Broome to produce a 3 page letter to try to explain that that 1 sentence in the Bylaws means something other than what it says. Reader beware: have a big bottle of aspirin handy before reading Rees Broome’s explanation because trying to follow their logic will cause your head to rotate more than once on your shoulders. Rees Broome has been the recipient of checks totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, signed by LHCC’s entrenched board.

In the October 2007 we supported Bill Masters, who solicited proxies from Lake Holiday property owners. Masters added a new wrinkle to the proxy debate. Because of the cost of soliciting proxies, Masters solicited proxies good for 5 years. And that apparently scares LHCC’s directors.

So how did LHCC respond? By using association funds and resources to conduct a poorly disguised political attack on Masters. Mailed in an official LHCC envelope with a hard-to-miss yellow sticker claiming to hold “Important Information”, LHCC directors spent Association money to send out in early October what was nothing more than a blatant political campaign letter.

LHCC’s mailer attacked proxies generally and the Masters proxy in particular. The mailer also attacked Masters’ campaign positions. Amusingly, the letter misquoted one of Masters’ own campaign letters and falsely claimed that Masters’ calculation of the expected dam repair cost was wrong. Masters used actual numbers from the board meeting on the dam repair and did nothing more complicated than dividing the estimated total cost of the dam repair by the number of property owners actually paying dues. After misquoting the number in Masters’ letter, LHCC’s response was that “No arithmetic we know of gets to this number.” More simply: LHCC’s directors acknowledged they don’t know how to do basic arithmetic.

Three candidates, who also happened to be incumbent officers or directors – President Wayne Poyer, Treasurer John Martel, and Pat Shields – used association resources to mail out their own political response to candidate Masters, who used private resources to pay for his campaign. Wayne Poyer, John Martel, and Pat Shields failed to separate their roles as officers and directors of the association from their personal interests as candidates for re-election. At the bare minimum, they should repay the full cost of this political mailer. We challenge them to do so.

That’s the background for December 27th’s proxy policy discussion, which we present in 4 video clips:

At the meeting, all directors except VP Dave Buermeyer favored allowing proxies. Buermeyer continued to be against allowing proxies even though LHCC has a legal opinion from Steve Moriarty, former LHCC counsel, that proxies must be allowed. Pat Shields cautioned Buermeyer that “we need to follow our lawyer’s advice.”

The proxy policy that LHCC’s directors want to adopt is inherently unfair. Directors want an absentee ballot to revoke a proxy, even if the proxy is executed after the absentee ballot. The only way to revoke an absentee ballot is to show up in person at the election site. This is an easy task for a homeowner. But how about for the Membership Lot owner living in California? His only way to revoke an absentee ballot is to show up in person. The burden is very different for a homeowner who could just walk across the street compared to a Membership Lot owner who has to travel across country. Once LHCC directors capture an absentee ballot vote from a Membership Lot owner, they don’t want to let it go. So they make it very difficult and expensive to revoke.

Revoking an absentee ballot also shows a sloppy inconsistency in LHCC’s voting procedures. In September of 2005, LHCC was planning to hold a vote on new governing documents. At that time, we challenged in court LHCC’s refusal to let members change their absentee votes. LHCC subsequently canceled that scheduled vote and revised its procedures for revoking an absentee ballot. Those changes are reflected in the minutes of the 9/27/05 board meeting. The revised policy states that:

Eligible Members exercising their right to vote an absentee ballot retain the option of changing that absentee vote up to the deadline for all voting. Once an absentee ballot has been witnessed, mailed to and logged in by the office or registered agent, to change that vote the Member must attend the Membership meeting called for the purpose of that vote and, providing proper identification, request that the ballot be recovered for the purpose of recasting the vote.

That policy was adopted in the 2005 election. By 2007 it was abandoned. Compare the note at the bottom of the 2005 ballot to 2007’s version. 2005’s ballot says: “If you desire to change your absentee ballot you must do so in person at the annual meeting on October 22nd, 2005.” 2007’s ballot says: “Once submitted, this Absentee Ballot may not be retracted or changed.” The message from LHCC’s directors to members: Once we have your vote, we’re not giving it up.

The proxy policy also is an attempt to modify LHCC’s Bylaws by board resolution. LHCC’s directors would like to require directed proxies, where the proxy spells out how the proxy holder will vote. Requiring directed proxies blocks unannounced floor nominations. If a candidate to be nominated on the floor is announced in advance, LHCC can discourage that candidate from accepting the nomination. But there’s no requirement that proxies be directed in either LHCC’s Bylaws or in Virginia’s Non-Stock Corporation Act. Wayne Poyer clearly understands that the Non-Stock Corporation Act places few restrictions on proxy use. He described the flexibility that the law puts on proxies to his fellow board members: “the back of an envelope is quite fine.” So what’s an entrenched board to do? Amend LHCC’s Bylaws without the required member vote and circumvent the act by passing a board resolution.

Above all else, LHCC uses false claims about proxies. At the December 27th meeting, Wayne Poyer said some voters gave up their vote for 5 years. That’s absolute non-sense. The proxy that Bill Masters solicited from property owners was revocable at any time by the person that granted the proxy. Revocation could be accomplished by something as simple as sending an email to the proxy holder.

The other false claim is that a proxy granter has somehow given up his vote. That view is expressed in the title of the board’s political attack on Masters: “Its Your Vote – Keep It.” Voting is expressing an opinion, and proxy granters have made a decision to express their opinion by executing a proxy. They have elected to work together to improve their chances of winning an election. There are legitimate reasons for voters to work together and vote by proxy. Voting by proxy gives someone other than LHCC’s board the ability to verify the accuracy of a vote. If 400 voters vote individually, the task of confirming that their votes were counted correctly is insurmountable. If 400 voters vote by proxy, that task becomes simple. LHCC’s directors apparently would rather members act in an isolated manner, have no chance of winning an election, and have no chance to independently verify their votes were counted properly. To keep power, try to divide the opposition.

It’s time for LHCC to clean up its elections.

Election Recommendations

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Election Recommendations

#1

Give every voter a fair opportunity to change his mind and have his most recent vote counted. That means if a proxy is executed after an absentee ballot, count the proxy. If an absentee ballot is executed after a proxy, throw away the proxy and count the absentee ballot.

#2

Don’t make it any harder for a Membership Lot owner to change his vote than it is for a homeowner that lives next door to the polling place. Treat all owners fairly. Let owners undo an absentee ballot easily. A proxy executed after the absentee ballot is one way to do this.

#3

Stop focusing attention on how people vote, be it in person, by absentee ballot, or by proxy. Stop criticizing others who opt to express their vote in any particular manner. A vote by proxy is just as much a vote as that made in person. Someone who votes by proxy is every bit as smart and sophisticated as someone who shows up to vote in person.

#4

Stop all political mailings from the office, period. If candidates want to spend their own money to campaign, let them.

#5

Acknowledge that the October 2007 attack on Masters was a political one, and make the politicians who benefited from it – Poyer, Martel, and Shields – pay for it.

#6

Take the office – controlled by the entrenched board – out of politics altogether. Have the absentee ballots mailed to an independent vote counter. Stop accepting ballots hand-delivered to the office.

#7

Stop hiring armed guards to defend a homeowners’ election. Third-world dictators have armed guards at elections. Responsible community association leaders do not. Its an unbecoming mix of menacing and pathetic, and it only exposes how far some LHCC directors will go to keep power.

Until LHCC’s directors implement these changes to election rules, the community’s elections will continue to take place under a cloud of suspicion and mistrust.

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Back in April of 2007, we wrote about the contingent payments that LHCC might receive from Aqua Virginia. These payments made it on to LHCC’s 2006 financial statements, audited by Kositzka Wicks & Co of Alexandria. They made it on in a big way – in the amount of $794,213. In our April post, Dear Mike Kilmer, we criticized allowing contingent gains that might never be received to be recorded on financial statements. We expressed the view that recording contingent gains was inconsistent with the accounting principle of conservatism and inconsistent with FAS No. 5. Despite this criticism, the only response we received was from Mike Kilmer, which was really no response at all. Through LHCC’s 11/30/07 Balance Sheet, the most recent one we have available as of this writing, the contingent gain remains on the books.

We quote from Kositzka Wicks’ 2006 audit letter:

…we conducted our audits in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement. An audit includes examining, on a test basis, evidence supporting the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. An audit also includes assessing the accounting principles used and significant estimates made the Association…

2007 is now in the history books, and we don’t think any check is coming from Aqua Virginia for 2007’s contingent payment. Let’s forget what actually took place and consider only the reasonableness of the estimates provided by LHCC.

In our earlier post, we provided a variety of readily available data to show that no reasonable estimate would predict the contingent payments would be received for the next several years. In fact, Aqua Virginia’s publicly available SCC filings from February 2007 show that their accounting entries do not record these contingent payments on their financial statements. If Aqua Virginia’s auditors believed there was a reasonable expectation that these contingent payments would be made, wouldn’t they be recorded on Aqua Virginia’s books?

Did LHCC give its auditors complete and accurate information?

In February, Wayne Poyer told the auditors in his management representation letter:

There are no estimates that may be subject to a material change in the near term that have not been properly disclosed in the financial statements. We understand that near term means the period within one year of the date of the financial statements.

Then, in July Lake Holiday homeowner Bill Masters raised the issue of collecting the contingent payments at a public meeting. Wayne Poyer openly told members:

Mr. Masters criticizes the $76,000 which Aqua America will return to the association, assuming we meet a certain number of hookups. And he’s right about that, that’s part of the contract. He’s also right that during this terrible market downturn we’ve got, we probably won’t meet that.

Evidently, Wayne Poyer convinced the auditors on February 26th that the Aqua Virginia contingent payments would be received. Then he flip-flopped when speaking to members – a little more than 4 months after his representation to the auditors. That seems to fall within the near term time frame, and not getting the money seems to be material.

Maybe not collecting the early year payments that make up the $794,213 is not a “material change” to Wayne Poyer.

Unfortunately, LHCC’s representations to its auditors also raise other questions. Wayne Poyer informed the auditors that “…as of February 26, 2007…there are no liens or encumbrances on such assets nor has any asset been pledged.” Really? Does the $750,000 Wachovia note executed on February 2, 2007 count? Does the deed of trust pledging LHCC real estate count? Those documents are part of the balloon note that Wayne Poyer and John Martel signed to refurbish the clubhouse. Both the loan documents pledging assets and the letter to auditors claiming there were no assets pledged were signed by the same person – Wayne Poyer.

These are simple and straightforward representations to LHCC’s own auditors. Why aren’t they accurate?

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Rick Bleck, who did not meet the 1 year ownership requirement for nomination set forth in LHCC’s bylaws and was invisible on the campaign trail but was elected anyway, was absent from the December 27th meeting. Rick was the two-time defending champion (if that’s the right phrase) in our Silent Sitter contest. In fact, up to this point, Rick has won every Silent Sitter award we’ve given, since we’ve only given 2. We’re not sure if he was busy or has a strong sense of fair play that required him to give another director the chance to win the Silent Sitter award.

Given a fair chance, somebody other than Rick Bleck did win our Silent Sitter award. That person is Suzy Marcus. Congratulations, Suzy! You’re our Silent Sitter for the December 27th meeting. Ever since we conceived copied the idea for the Silent Sitter award, we just knew that as long as she showed up, Suzy Marcus would put in a strong showing. The video clip Oops We Goofed (also linked in our post Twenty Certified Letters Later… and on our Videos page) pretty much includes Suzy Marcus’s entire contribution at a meeting that was well over 2 hours in length. In other words, if you don’t count silence, she didn’t contribute very much. When you consider that board members get their board books in advance of the meeting so they can show up ready and prepared to contribute, there’s simply no excuse for that much silence.

Suzy was absent from the 11/26 board meeting, at which she was responsible for presenting an “Open Discussion on Realtor Outreach.” Presumably, she was planning to lead a discussion of ways to help market the Lake Holiday community to real estate agents. When she was absent in November, this topic was moved to December. Perhaps she forgot about her own agenda item. We didn’t. Any benefits from a realtor outreach have now been delayed for 2 months. Sellers may not take kindly to a board that talks tough about a challenging real estate market but when it’s time for action only procrastinates. Chalk it up to having Silent Sitters on the board.

We do have sympathy for Rick Bleck, Suzy Marcus, and every future Silent Sitter. It’s very difficult to break out of the Silent Sitter role, as our video Only 3 For the DEC demonstrates. The DEC is LHCC’s Development Executive Committee, and this committee is where the important stuff happens. As Wayne Poyer explained in the following video, the DEC manages the relationship with Miller & Smith, the biggest developer at Lake Holiday. The DEC also handled the initial relationship with potential golf course purchasers and developed the Utility Extension Program (UEP). In other words, it plays a lead role in critical development issues at Lake Holiday before these issues ever reach the board.

After Wayne Poyer described the DEC at the board’s November organizational meeting, a number of directors jumped at the chance to serve on this important committee. Directors Noel O’Brien and Robin Pedlar, two directors who could challenge for a Silent Sitter award in any given month, wanted to serve. But alas, after offering the tease of what the DEC got to work on, Wayne Poyer explained that there are only 3 seats on the DEC. Without further explanation, these potential Silent Sitters who wanted to contribute just had to understand that Wayne Poyer, John Martel, and Dave Buermeyer would take over the DEC. Is it unusual that 3 men appear to just assume they should dominate this committee and 2 women appear to just understand that this committee is not for them?

Silent Sitters like Suzy Marcus and Rick Bleck have to overcome more than any general reluctance to contribute. They’re fighting against a highly concentrated leadership that blocks them from tackling important tasks.

As much as board members may claim to dislike our Silent Sitter award, the powerful few cherish the existence of Silent Sitters like Suzy Marcus.

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…can the President of LHCC just pick up the phone, call a homeowner, and say “Oops, we goofed. We’re truly sorry”? Apparently not.

That answer was hidden away in a tab of LHCC’s board book called “For Your Interest.” LHCC directors now bury letters and emails from property owners to the board in this tab instead of reading and discussing them during the open meeting. That’s one way of blocking criticism from making its way to video and onto the internet.

The first example of this involves homeowner Robert Middleton, whose property was hit with a lien of $1800 for alleged violations of Lake Holiday’s sign prohibitions. A hit of $1800 – ouch! As the board discussed in our Compliance Reporting video (it’s in our video gallery on our Videos page), if Middleton violated any sign prohibition, he didn’t do it on his own property. In that video, GM Ray Sohl said that the signs should have simply been taken down instead of placing liens on Middleton’s property. It’s possible that Middleton himself watched the video and used it to support an argument that the liens should be removed, which is something that the board did not acknowledge at the November meeting. At the December 27th board meeting, shown in the following video, the board finally decided that Middleton is “no longer liable for $1800.” It’s good that LHCC reversed course on this issue.

The board discussed how to communicate this good news to Middleton, who apparently refused to accept several recently-mailed certified letters from LHCC. Ray Sohl described that LHCC has sent 20 certified letters to Middleton over this alleged violation, which apparently turned out to be no violation at all. Perhaps Middleton grew tired of seeing his own money spent to send him certified letters to communicate the message “We are 100% right, you are 100% wrong, so we’ve put an additional lien on your property.” An unsurprising outcome.

Some directors were reluctant to communicate with Middleton directly. In the video the best option developed by LHCC President Wayne Poyer was to put a message in a plain, unmarked envelope addressed by hand. That only seems strange to someone who does not understand that the board prefers to sneak their good news to Middleton to avoid having to acknowledge their error. Director Pat Shields even recommended no further effort to reach out to Middleton, ignoring that LHCC decided to remove the lien. Shields tried to focus attention on Middleton as the culprit, rather than LHCC itself: “He’s played the rules since this whole thing started.”

We have a simple suggestion for LHCC: have a senior official pick up the phone and call the man. Try starting the conversation off with: “Ooops, we goofed. We’ve removed the liens. We’re truly sorry.” Stop trying to shift the focus to Middleton’s alleged wrongdoing and away from the fact that LHCC improperly filed liens. We’re sure a straightforward, sincere apology will go a long way toward addressing any bad feelings Middleton may have.

Ray Sohl supported further efforts to reach out to Middleton for a good reason:

…you want to encourage participation of all members. The more participation you have, the more responsible community you have.

The secretive “For Your Interest” tab also revealed the second example of the unwillingness of LHCC’s leaders to admit a mistake. In our post It’s Not Our Problem Anymore we criticized LHCC’s efforts to wash its hands of helping property owners deal with utility problems. Apparently, LHCC has reversed course on this issue. LHCC Secretary Ken Murphy, a former LHEUC board member, has initiated efforts to communicate with Aqua Virginia and the SCC about utility complaints from Lake Holiday homeowners. Judging from the discussion in the video, complaints continue to roll in. We don’t see entirely smooth sailing, based on Murphy’s comment that he has “yet to identify the person at Aqua who will listen to me.” A little more than 1 year ago, LHCC closed on the sale of LHEUC’s assets for more than $1 million, and Aqua Virginia continues to serve Lake Holiday. Given those facts, one would hope that the board identified some responsible people at Aqua Virginia who would listen. One would also hope the board kept the contact information of those people. Nevertheless, we applaud this long-overdue correction.

Burying these 2 fixes in a section of the board book that is not intended for open discussion shows just how hard it is for LHCC’s leaders to admit they made a mistake. When faced with having to admit its error in putting a lien on Middleton’s property, the board preferred to communicate via cold and impersonal certified letters rather than a simpler and cheaper phone call. The personal phone call is both simpler and more appropriate in this situation.

Lake Holiday property owners are justifiably concerned about utility problems, and the board has tried to distance themselves from these concerns. If the board abandoned that effort and plans to play an active role in resolving these problems, that’s a good thing. The proper response to both our post and the complaints raised by others would have been to publicly acknowledge the mistake and openly commit to a new course.

Stubbornly refusing to admit a mistake sends an “I’m unreasonable” message to the world.

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Frustrated by utility problems and LHCC’s changing tune on its responsibility to resolve them? That’s no surprise in light of some recent comments by board members. After cashing the check from the utility sale, without notice or explanation LHCC’s directors seem to have withdrawn their commitment to support homeowners having problems with utility service.

On May 20, 2006 LHCC held a meeting at the Reynolds Store Fire House to try to sell property owners on approving new governing documents. Then LHCC President Chris Allison and current President Wayne Poyer were in attendance, along with then GM Dave Ingegneri.

Utility issues were raised by a number of owners at that meeting. LHCC and Aqua Virginia filed their petition to sell LHEUC’s assets to Aqua Virginia just 3 months before, and owners were concerned about the consequences of selling the Utility. Before the sale was approved by the SCC, Aqua Virginia was operating LHEUC for LHCC, so property owners got a glimpse into how Aqua would behave as the new utility owner.

Homeowner Duran Field described a problem he had with a lift station near his home. He told Chris Allison that after an initial response from Aqua Virginia, he called 7 more times and never received a single return call. He ultimately had to ask GM Dave Ingegneri to intervene to get the problem resolved.

Field, whose voice is heard first on the audio clip, summarized his experience:

I’m not saying that the long term consequences of selling to Aqua are good or bad. Short term, I’m not that impressed.

Field justifiably wondered about the impact a loss of control would have on utility customer service. At the end of the clip, then LHCC President Chris Allison soothed Field’s concern:

You’ll still call Dave Ingegneri. You will still call Dave Ingegneri. Those people are going to have to be responsive to us.

The meaning of Chris Allison’s comment is crystal clear, especially since he repeated it twice. Even after the utility sale, the Lake Holiday GM, who reports to the board, will be the point of contact for utility issues; the sale would not result in a loss of control because the Lake Holiday GM, paid by property owners, would insure that “those people” (i. e., Aqua Virginia) would be responsive.

Field and everyone else in the room could be comforted by Chris Allison’s tough talk. Or could they?

Fast forward to November, 2007. Much had changed. By this point, LHCC had closed its sale of LHEUC’s assets to Aqua Virginia. It had deposited the proceeds of $1.16 million in its bank account, and it was well on its way to spending most or all of that money. Dave Ingegneri resigned as GM in June of 2006. Ray Sohl took his place that October. Chris Allison was no longer President, having been replaced by Wayne Poyer, who as an LHCC director listened to Chris Allison’s May 2006 comments without objection.

But one thing had not changed: utility troubles were still a top concern for property owners in late 2007.

The video clip is part of a discussion of John Martel’s proposal to hold board workshops from the November 26th board meeting. Board member Jo-anne Barnard, formerly of the US Patent Office, described her thoughts on Martel’s proposal. During her remarks, she pointed out that the information section of the board book included “a lot of complaints about the water company.” That water company is now Aqua Virginia.

Did Wayne Poyer tell Jo-anne Barnard that complaining utility customers should call Ray Sohl at 540-888-3549 x 104 or email him at gm@lakeholidaycc.org?

Of course not. The check cleared. The representations that LHCC board members made to owners before the sale was approved to discourage objections to the transfer were now meaningless. Those representations have been long since forgotten. Owners that remember these commitments made by board members aren’t sticking to the board’s positive agenda.

So what exactly did Wayne Poyer tell Barnard? He said “it’s not our problem anymore.”

Jo-anne Barnard made no attempt to correct Wayne Poyer or recommend a different approach to addressing utility problems. The complaints mentioned by Barnard are now filed away in a tab of board members’ board books, but they are no longer automatically part of the open discussion at board meetings. Why not conceal the complaints when revealing them would only risk greater exposure of the broken promise?

LHCC board members have consistently told property owners one story to overcome objections and manufactured a different, opposite story later. Another example of this behavior occurred in the Utility sale itself. In the August 2000 President’s Report Frank Heisey wrote to property owners that “selling of the utility company would require a 2/3 majority vote of the eligible membership….” Then, when we challenged the Utility sale in court unless it was approved by property owners, Frank Heisey and LHCC filed a response with the court that said that they “deny that the sale requires a vote of the members….” No requirements changed, and no mention was made in court of the discarded earlier statement of what was required.

This conduct is not some recent discovery. We’ve covered this before in our post Deliberate Behind the Scenes Manipulation of Information, the title of which is a direct quote from former LHCC President and current director Pat Shields. Why is this pattern of behavior repeated year after year? Lake Holiday property owners don’t hold their leaders accountable for the flip-flopping.

Changing commitments and concealing complaints to deny a problem. That is the problem of LHCC’s leaders.

The problem won’t go away until owners wake up to the flip-flopping, publicly acknowledge it goes on, and take control of their community away from double-talkers.

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